Alabama journalists arrested after publishing grand jury secrets

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Days after the Atmore News published a story on a criminal investigation of the local school board’s possible misuse of COVID-19 relief funds, the paper’s publisher and its sole reporter were arrested. The publisher — who is also on the school board — was at odds with the county’s top prosecutor on a recent matter, raising speculation about whether her arrest was motivated by revenge.

Key Players

Don Fletcher is the only editorial employee of the Atmore News, a weekly newspaper that serves Escambia County, Alabama, and has a circulation of about 1,300.

Sherry Digmon is publisher and co-owner of the Atmore News. She is also a member of the Escambia County Board of Education.

Stephen M. Billy is district attorney of Escambia County, where Atmore, on the border of the Florida panhandle, is located.  

Michele McClung is superintendent of Escambia County Schools; the school board recently voted not to renew her contract.  

Further Detail

In late September 2023, Fletcher found a grand jury subpoena in the mailbox of the Atmore News. Addressed to two people who worked for the county school system, it revealed the grand jury was investigating possible financial improprieties by the local board of education. 

After further reporting confirmed the authenticity of the subpoena, Fletcher published a story on Oct. 25, revealing that a grand jury was looking at whether bonus payments to employees of the school district were illegally made with COVID-19 relief funds from the federal government.

Billy had Fletcher and Digmon arrested for disclosing details of grand jury proceedings, a felony. They were released on $10,000 bonds. 

Legal scholars and press advocates came to their defense, citing First Amendment protections and alleging misuse of the state secrecy law by Billy. The law does not criminalize dissemination of the details of grand jury proceedings by the press, as long as reporters do not come by the information unlawfully. Legal precedent, most famously the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1971 decision in the Pentagon Papers case, also supports the right of the press to publish such information. 

There is a backstory, involving Digmon’s second job as an elected member of the seven-member county school board: Prior to the arrest, Billy and Digmon had fought over the board’s decision not to renew McClung’s contract. Digmon was in the majority in a 4-3 decision made on Oct. 12 to let McClung go. 

Billy had strongly advocated for McClung’s continued employment and spoke publicly at the meeting before the vote took place — which was also before the newspaper’s story on the grand jury was published. He implied that the board members were breaking a law requiring them to vote “solely on the needs and interests of students of the system.”

“You’re undoing what you took an oath of office to do,” Billy said.

What Billy may not have realized was that his speech helped Fletcher confirm the story about the subpoena, as Billy referenced the grand jury investigation in his defense of McClung. 

“This lady is not going to be brought before a grand jury because there is nothing to bring her there. There will be other things to come before the grand jury that I’m not at liberty to reveal,” he said. 

The Atmore News story came out less than two weeks later.

Digmon and Fletcher’s lawyer, Earnest Ray White, contended that the arrests of the two were a form of “retaliation” for Digmon’s vote to dismiss McClung.

Outcome 

Five days following her initial arrest, Digmon was charged with two more felonies for ethics violations. The charges alleged that Digmon had pressured school district staff to buy ads in her publications. She was arrested a second time. 

White claimed that the charges had no basis, as the school system bought ads even before Digmon was on the board. 

Then a Nov. 3 report from the grand jury recommended the impeachment of Digmon, citing selective attendance at school events and claiming that Digmon turned against McClung because the former superintendent had questioned the ad purchases. 

An impeachment would change the political composition of the school board, which could potentially reverse the vote on McClung’s contract.

Bail terms prohibit Fletcher and Digmon from writing stories regarding the grand jury and school board until all of the details are made public. But the Atmore News published an unbylined story headlined “Impeachment!” on Nov. 8 that called the felony charges against Digmon “a legal assault.”

Billy ultimately charged subpoenaed school employee Veronica Fore with leaking the grand jury information to the Atmore News. 

The cases against Fletcher and Digmon remained pending as of Jan. 22, 2024. 

Press advocates raise concerns 

“It’s open season on journalists,” Kathy Kiely, a journalism professor at the University of Missouri, told The Washington Post, saying that financial struggles in the journalism industry encourage action from officials who now have less to fear from the media. 

Bruce D. Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the bail terms placed on Fletcher and Digmon that preclude them from publishing even details they gather in their own reporting are essentially prior restraint by the government, which is severely limited by the First Amendment.